Sensorial Cosmologies and Cultural Resistance in Latin America

2026 On the Edge Symposium
Schedule of Presentations

Wednesday, February 18

Session 1: 1:15-2:30
Federico Pous (Elon University), “Malvinas Resurrected”

Veronica Garibotto (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), “Beyond Secularism: Psychoanalysis, Catholic Feminism, and Reproductive Justice in Argentina”

Session 2: 2:45-4:45
Angelica Serna (Duke University), “Andean Dialogues and Transmissions”

Andrea Echeverría (Wake Forest University), “When the Mountain Speaks: Extractivism, Memory, and Resistance in Apu Kolki Hirka”

Joshua Shapero (Duke University), “Dreams, Miracles, and Protests: Encounters with Places in the Cordillera Blanca (Peru)”

Keynote Address: 5:30pm McKinnon E-F
Ana M. Ochoa Gautier (Tulane University), “Contemporary Audiovisuality as a Site of Cosmological Inscription”

Thursday, February 19

Session 3: 9:00-10:15
Nicolas Aguia Betancourt (The Ohio State University), “Land, Being, and Extinction in Gamaliel Churata’s Theatrical Works”

Stephen Bloch-Schulman (Elon University), “Unforgetting the Past: Landó, Afro-Peruvian Music and Oblivion”

Session 4: 10:30-11:45
Pablo G. Celis-Castillo (Elon University), “Allegory, Affect, and Enlightenment in “Al pie de las hambres” (2024)”

Maria Isabel Gervasi (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), ““Voices of the Anen: Memory, Language, and Cosmology in the Wampis Poetry of Dina Ananco”

Luncheon Panel Discussion: 12:00-2:00
“Urgent Issues for Latin Americanists Today”
Lakeside 213
Moderator: Federico Pous (Elon University)

Sylvia Muñoz, Assistant Dean of Students/Director of the Center for Race, Ethnicity and Diversity Education (Elon University)

Corey Roberts, Assistant Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies (Elon University)

Héctor Jaimes, Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature (North Carolina State University)

Meleena Gil, Assistant Professor of English (Elon University)

Christopher Latham, Student (Elon University)

Session 5: 2:15-3:30
Daniel Castelblanco (Elon University), “Sounding Together: Reciprocity, Resistance, and Revival in the Sikuri Movement”

Nadia Villafuerte (University of California, San Diego), “Marimba across Guatemala-Mexico Borderlands”

Session 6: 3:45-5:00
Diana Marcela Solano (Florida International University), “Institutional Killjoys at Work: Affects, Bureaucracies, and Ontologies in Colombia’s Indigenous Mental Health Pathway”

Juan Andrés Suárez Ontaneda (Bryn Mawr College), ““El Nazareno me Dijo”: The Vernacular Hagiography of Ismael Rivera”

Conference Dinner: 6:30

Friday, February 20

Session 7: 9:00-10:45
Laura Rojas (Independent Scholar), “Collective Power: Trans Migrant Women’s Spatial Practices in Jackson Heights, Queens”

Paulo Andre Suarez Rojas (The Graduate Center, City University of New York), “The Immigrant Object: Displacement, Refusal, and Migrant Politics in Los Angeles”

Israel Perez Medina (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), “From Migrant Bodies to Nomadic Writing: Second-Generation Subjectivity and Linguistic Resistance in Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez’s Nocturno de Frontera”

Session 8: 11:00-11:45
Concluding Discussion
Moderator: Leyla Savloff (Elon University)

Lunch Departure: 12:00